Agency - You Are Responsible

It is not only a shame but a waste of time that so many of us over our lives spent so much of our time trying to determine and to argue who is to blame for our current condition or current struggles or for why we do not have this thing or that thing.  At times, I have been part of those that engaged in that kind of analysis but not recently.  Most of my life, though, I spend my time trying to find solutions or ways to do things better so that my results turn out better and so that I can become better.

However, victimology has become so popular, today.  Victimology was the name of a distance education course that I did one semester in a pass / fail course just for fun from the University of Indiana.  In the course, there were a lot of textbooks, and it was more structured as a sociology course.  So, rather than making conclusions the point of the course was simply to present facts and society trends.  I could have never guessed that this course would have so much relevance in our current day.  

The highlight of the course was the fact that so many different cultures were raise to believe that their current condition was the result of THIS group or that group and to totally bypass the fact that everyone.. every single person.. has agency over their own life.

What do I mean by agency.  I mean the ability to act on behalf of someone.  That is what that word means.  Sometimes, we can delegate that to another person, though I would exercise caution in doing that.  But, the PRIMARY person with authority and ability to act for your life is YOU.  It is like the quote that the best way to predict your life is to create it.

In reality, you cannot blame anyone else for your sequence of events that happen in your life.. or at least not solely responsible.  We all in some way make a choice.. to stay, to love, to invest our time, to sacrifice, and so forth.  Can someone take advantage of that.  Yes.  But, you also could be responsible for not speaking up about your own needs or your own boundaries.  You also chose to give to them, and giving is a good thing in this world, within reason.  But, none of our past was written without our consent.

So carrry that forward to the present and the future.  Who has the most authority and ability to impact our lives?  We do.  So, when difficulties come, as I aid it is a waste of time and energy to spend our time looking for blame rather than looking for how to fix a situation or how to move on to other alternative paths.

So, do not forget that the person with the greatest agency for your life is you, and then take the time to love yourself enough to choose good paths that can lead you to happy outcomes.

Pride - Good and Bad

English is a funny and confusing language, when you compare it to other languages, and that definitely applies to someone that tries to read the Bible, oftentimes.  For example, we have one word for love, whereas there are like six in Greek.  Even when there is only one word, it is often used and meant in different ways with different meanings.  If we are not careful, we can end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater in dismissing some things from our desire to defend something that we feel is right.

An example of this is the word "Pride."  We have read of how the devil in the scripture is supposed to have fallen from pride.  Now, a lot of us, especially in our younger years but often true in older ones, too.. will take issue with that.  We SHOULD feel good about ourselves, we argue.  If we have done good things and accomplished certain things, why shouldn't we feel happy for that and if we believe we should not feel happy for that it can rob us of needed self confidence that helps promote our growth in other areas.  In order to grow, you must believe that you can.

However, I don't think that is what the problem would be.  That's not the kind of damage that pride can do.  It isn't about loving yourself for the good that you do.  It is more about depriving yourself of the good that is DUE, out of the refusal to admit that you can be wrong or flawed or the need to have others acknowledge you as being good.

There were times in my life when I had to go on food stamps or public assistance in the life stage in which I found myself.  I would risist it for a long time, even as I found my options shrinking.  I didn't want to admit that I could need help, and so I would suffer and not have as good as conditions as I could have out of my pride of feeling myself too good for the help.

Similarly, there have been times that I was determined to win or be proven right in a conflict or disagreement with someone else.  The end result of that desire was loss of connections and potential that could be had if the need to "win" was set aside.

So, while it is good to feel happy about your accomplishments, it is destructive to feel you are too good to be mistaken, flawed, or wrong for seeking your own way.  And, that misunderstanding can cost you more than you were made to lose.  Confession or humility does not break you down.  It is the beginning of beginning to rise.

What It's Like to Walk in Faith

There was a Christian band that I listened to when I was much younger that was called Angelica, I believe.  They were a screaming guitar rock band, as many of the bands of that time where.  They had this one song that was called Walking in Faith.  So, being a young Christian I was like..... yeah... WALKING IN FAITH at the top of my lungs and believing that everything would be perfect in my life, like a Biblical providence story unfolding.  I really believed that was what the Scripture meant when it said to walk in faith.  You claimed your belief and waited for God to make it happen.  There are quite a few that still believe that is true, even though that is closer to spell casting than faith in God... or life for that matter.

The kind of understanding that I have come to have about faith is that it is hard, often lonely, filled with reasons to doubt, takes a long time, changes you, and often is answered in a way that you do not expect.  I have walked in faith many times, and I am doing so, again.  In those moments, you wonder a lot of things.. if it will happen, if you are stupid to try, if you are enough, and if you are doing the best that you can do, for example.  Faith isn't about having the answers and knowing things with clarity.  If it was, it wouldn't be faith.  Faith is not knowing all of these things and yet TRYING.. stepping up to the plate to take a swing and then swinging, making the move, beginning the fitness goal, making the plans and then executing your best, even on the difficult days.

But, you were not meant to do it alone.  I know it often feels like that is the case, but that is what faith in God REALLY is all about.  It isn't speaking some words to get what you want.  It is letting it break you down enough to tell God about it, who is standing there waiting for you to call and wanting to be there for you like every parent feels and wants for their kids.  Faith isn't getting your desires.  It is about desiring and walking in the direction of the goal, trying your best, forgiving your worst, and receiving God's grace and peace on the journey.

And, that is what I wish for you, tonight.  I hope you had a good weekend.  Let's walk in faith in the weeks to come. 

Noise

I wasn't going to post tonight, but I feel that it is important to share WHY it was important not to post, tonight.  I didn't want to post tonight, because I was not feeling that I had something to say.  I had not received any perspective and was not feeling any inspiration that was saying this was important to tell otheres.  So, as I generally do, I chaulk that up as a learing day or  a pause day to myself.

Now, on the other side of that, it has been long enough to post to promote the blog, and my stats.. which are already good enough... have begun to blog.  So, the pressure is to post something.. anything.. and hit on things people want to hear to promote.  But, anyone that knows me knows that that kind of pressure has an almost reverse effect upon me.  I have not ever and do not post content to please others.  I post what I feel led to post, and I don't feel led to post.  So, this will be tonight's post.  I am going to watch this baseball game I am watching, and I will listen to music, and I will think about my coming move and probably ovverthink different things and feel things that I want to consider without posting... which is the human right to anyone alive, today.  But, this will be the only post that I do.. a post to say... tonight is not for you.  And whether posted or not, expect other nights that are the same.

The New Begins Today

There has been a lot of lessons that I have learned and ways of personal growth that I have explored and am doing.  The posts of those lessons have been good to share, and I will note them in the future at times.  However, I have been feeling the desire from within and as a result of my development that my focus must change both in my own life and the large part of this blog.  I have spent a lot of time discussing the change andon the topic of what are good ways of thinking and things to be doing to help to move from paths that does not lead to long term happiness to foundational ones that do.  But, I don't want my own thinking or this blog to be stuck in the transition or change period, just as it is not good for you to be stuck there, either.

Therefore, I am going to be taking a focus in my life and my blog to actually be LIVING the new life and BEING the better me that I have been becoming.  I do realize that this blog post is talking about the change, but I desire the future ones to be posting about the good without need for context that brought it there or transformative life lessons.  At some point on the journey to happiness, you must allow yourself to just be happy.  It isn't something I have not been doing.  I have already been chooseing to focus on the positive and growth and hope.  But, especially as my date of my move to my new location is approaching, I want to focus on the good that is found in my day and what I like about myself and more.  

So, my social media will become more personal to me and my life joys and successes, and my lessons in this Forward to Happiness blog will have a lot more examples I share of being... happy.  My old posts will still be out there and I am continuing to work to get them indexed.  But, just as my playlists often lead to a good ending, I am going to move my life, daily, to reflect that for myself, as well.. not because I found someone with whom to share it all but because I found myself to experience it.  It's time that that began.

Being Reasonable

I was reading on social media this morning that 5 planets are in retrograde, and it occurred to me that my new way of thinking and planning by reason has influenced areas such as this, as well.  The post was saying that if you were feeling a little heavier than normal and more drawn to emotions, the retrograde was the cause.

I don't need planets moving to feel emotions, but I began removing control over my plans by my emotions a while ago.  I think it started when I was processing and realizing that allowing my emotions to take the wheel had led me to many difficulties and had cost me many things that were valuable to me.. again.. not just feelings of positive but negative reactions, as well.  So, I determined that the best thing I could do would be to use my very smart brain to plan my path and then stick to it, REGARDLESS of my feelings on any particular day.

It's not always an easy path.  I still feel the full range of emotions at different times.  I feel love and longing and fear and pain and more at different times, but as you make it a habit to feel the feelings, let them pass through you without a hand on your life wheel, and stay fixed on plans, it gets easier to do so as you go forward.  

So... emotional retrograde?  I didn't even notice.  I have enough things changing in my life, right now, to justify any emotional unsteadiness, but my path and plans are fixed and progressing; and knowing that gives me the peace of stability in the now and the future.

Act Don't React

There has been a lot of lessons that I have had as a focus over the last year, but one of them that has been important and different than much of my past is realizing that as you plan and guide your life, it should be chosen by logic and reason and not as much by emotion.  Also, it should be led by intention and action, rather than emotional reactions.

Indeed, I have had a lot of experience, as I am sure that many others can also testify in their lives, of making decisions based on emotional responses to things.  By that, I don't just mean angry reactions.  There has been times that I felt low and depressed or scared or more and withdrew into more safe environments.  It became a common defense mechanism to do so, and both after my first divorce and my eye surgeries I would choose to abandon my job and environment to seek family foundations.  I do not mean to say that seeking family is a bad thing.  However, let me more fully go through my examples.

In those examples, I upended my life and put myself in economically more difficult situations, and the result was having to work really hard and having less actual time to interact with family.  Further, the world is much smaller in our day than we think.  Driving hours away to visit family is just as difficult, oftentimes, as flying out to see them, and there are other ways to connect without having to be in person. 

But, to pause to note one additional point, I often found that the times AFTER difficult periods were filled with things that were just as or more difficult and the ultimate lesson was not finding a secure and safe alternative but he life lesson that I was always able to stand and thrive IN those other difficult situations, just fine.  The correct response was not to react with emotion but to get up, get dressed, keep working hard, and plan wisely.

This goes both ways, though.  And, you should not stay somewhere out of emotion or fear, either.  The difficulty of a path should not dictate your choice but what is most important for you to do for your heart and life.  So, as I prepare to move with the difficulties of my goals, ahead, I know that the things I have been doing and the direction I go is choices made in wisdom and conviction.  It is done with intention and well thought out steps, and it is ALREADY a much steadier and more prosperous change than those of the past.

So, this blog post would be to simply say that if you are feeling stresed and fearful and emotional, don't make decisions.  Take a breath.  Go for a walk.  Let the emotions drop, and then choose what path leads to outcomes most in line with your desired lifeline.